Case Summary

TSA developed the blog Evolution of Security in order to improve relations between the agency's security personnel and airline passengers. With a team of straight-talking and caring bloggers, the agency has experienced early success in leveraging Web 2.0 to identify and solve potential service problems.

Business Challenge

In an effort to better communicate the mission and airport security practices of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to the public, the agency launched the interactive blog, Evolution of Security, on January 30, 2008.¹ On the site's introductory post, Administrator Kip Hawley outlined clearly TSA's organizational goal of getting airline passengers and agency employees back on the same page: "There isn't much opportunity for our Security Officers to explain the 'why' of what we ask you (the passengers) to do at the checkpoint, just the 'what' needs to be done to clear security. The result is that the feedback and venting ends up circulating among passengers with no real opportunity for us to learn from you or vice versa."²

Collaborative technology was selected as the most effective method for TSA to reach its operational goal due to both the potentially large audience a blog could reach as well the interactive nature of an online platform. Academic David Weinberger succintly summarized the agency's rationale for launching Evolution of Security instead of a standard complaint line when he stated: "It's the difference between yelling into a telephone receiver and actually having a chance to sit down with the organization itself."³

Approach Taken

Evolution of Security is noteworthy due to the diverse cross-section of agency employees that contribute to the site. The bloggers, all known informally by their first names, include 'Bob,' a supervisory Transportation Security Officer (TSO,) 'Chance,' an analyst, and 'Nico,' who is currently a public affairs manager for the agency. The relaxed and open nature of the site can be easily evidenced by the fact that these bloggers readily divulge personal tidbits. For instance, 'Bob' is former successful singer songwriter and 'Chance' was a hog calling finalist at the 2005 Wisconsin State Fair.⁴

In terms of content, the blog's comment policy prohibits posting that are vulgar in language or contain vulgar, or remarks that contain offensive terms that target specific employees or treat any ethnic or racial groups in a derogatory manner.⁵ According to the Delete-O-Meter, a counter on the main page which tracks the number of deleted comments, 361 posts have been deleted as of May 2008. But aside from sensible content restrictions, Evolution of Security administrators have genuinely welcomed all feedback, including the inevitable harsh and cranky of citizen responses. For instance, one comment posted on the day of the blog's launch was titled 'Dear fear mongering air Gestapo,' and another grumpy traveler remarked, 'congratulations on beating the IRS to become the most hated government agency in America.'

Results Achieved (Metrics Used)

In its first month Evolution of Security attracted approximately 31,000 unique visitors and generated more than 5000 responses.⁶ But it even more important than this quantified success, the blog has empowered TSA with a platform that can be utilized for both acknowledging potential aviation security problems, as well as facilitating good faith efforts to address them.

For example, in March 2008, TSA blogger 'Bob' was browsing Google News Alerts when he noticed a story making major waves in the blogosphere: traveler Michael Nygard had recently missed his flight because airport security had pulled him aside to take a closer look at his new MacBook Air laptop.⁷ While the passenger himself had not criticized TSA, his story set off a storm of complaints among bloggers who used the event to highlight the agency's supposed ineffectiveness. Using Evolution of Security as his platform, Bob immediately acknowledged the incident in a post and promised to find out for his readers why it had happened.⁸ A week later Bob issued a follow-up post in which he included a video clip of an X-ray test that he had personally conducted with the MacBook Air. The TSA blogger explained that the confusion had likely occurred because this new laptop produced an x-ray image that was unlike those generated by typical laptops or DVD players. Just as importantly, Bob promised to send the picture to TSA security screeners across the country in order to prevent unnecessary travel delays from occurring in the future.⁹ While Bob's response did not immediately silence all of the critics, the majority of blog comments were very supportive of the agency's actions.

In a similar case, site administrators on February 4th, 2008 began receiving questions from concerned passengers about airports that were requiring all electronics including blackberrys and iPods to be removed from carry-on bags.¹⁰ TSA conducted a subsequent investigation and learned that the exercises had been set up by local TSA offices and were not part of any national security strategy. The agency promptly stopped the exercises, and all airports returned to standard security procedures regarding electronics. On February 6th, Evolution of Security issued a post entitled "Hooray for Bloggers" which thanked the online community for improving TSA operations.

Lessons Learned

By actively encouraging both positive and negative comments on their blog, TSA has found Evolution of Security to be an effective medium for tracking criticism of the agency. Equally as important, the relaxed and open comment policy on the site has allowed the agency to use the blog as an effective tool for enhancing service quality.